Research interests
Historical perspectives on European labour market policies; Social security; Comparative systems of governance
Noel Whiteside is Professor Emerita of Comparative Public Policy. She is a contemporary historian of social and public policy development with specific interests in labour markets and constructions of social dependency in comparative (largely European) perspective. Her published work focuses on the changing nature of employment, on how this has shaped both welfare rights and categorisations of social dependency, using convention theory as the basis for analysis. This theoretical perspective and its links with the capability approach, as developed by Amartya Sen, formed the foundations of her work within European teams of social scientists under two European FP programmes (EUROCAP and CAPRIGHT)
Recent work (post retirement) has focused on funded pension systems and their governance (leading to evidence submitted to the government’s recent pension review, September 2024) and research on colonial welfare development during the cold war (c. 1948-65). This last is to be published in a forthcoming book on European welfare during the cold war, also in a forthcoming article in La Revue de l’Histoire de la Protection Sociale, in 2025.
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Academic profile
Following her doctorate (University of Liverpool) Noel Whiteside worked as an archivist in The National Archives before being recruited as a lecturer in social policy at Bristol University. She moved to the Department of Sociology at Warwick in 1999 and was appointed to a professorship the following year.
Noel Whiteside has been invited as a visiting Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), the Ecole Normale Superieur at Cachan (Paris), the universities of Sydney , Melbourne and Macquarie (Australia), Columbia University's Institute for Scholars at Reid Hall (Paris) and as a visiting professor at the school for economic and social sciences at the University of Helsinki. She was appointed Zurich Financial Services Fellow in 2000 and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society the following year. She was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Nordforsk programme on Nordic Excellence in Welfare Research (2008-13). She was awarded a Visiting Professorship at the University of Oxford (Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment) in 2014.
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Past research projects have included:
- Paths 2 Work - an interdisciplinary ESRC-funded study of transitions between education and employment in the midlands (UK), wth specific emphasis on the role played by internships, zero-hours contracts and other types of precarious work (PI Professor Kate Purcell)
- Superannuation Research Cluster (in collaboration with Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, funded by CSIRO, Australia): a project examining ways of improving efficiency and social justice in the world of funded pension systems (PI Professor Robert Lindley). This built on earlier research on changing pension systems in Europe under the FP7 programme GUSTO (PI Professor Colin Crouch)
- Income Protection Gaps - a global analysis of widening gaps in household income consequent on premature death / permanent disability of wage earners (at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford)
All projects
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Selected publications
- Whiteside, N. (2025)‘Convention and Capability : an engagement with the work of Amartya Sen’ in Diaz-Bone and G. de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of Economics and Sociology of Conventions, (© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025 ) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52130-1_79-1– forthcoming)
- Whiteside, N. (2025) ‘Le welfare state britannique: le Rapport Beveridge et ses conséquences. Une comparaison Royaume-Uni / France.’ In C. Andrieu (dir.) Le Conseil national de la Resistance : aux sources de l’Etat democratique et social (Folio Gallimard, Paris). Prévu mars 2025.
- Whiteside, N. (2023) ‘Convention theory and social policy: historical perspectives’ in Diaz-Bone and G. de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of Economics and Sociology of Conventions, (© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52130-1_79-1
- Whiteside, N. (2022) ‘Beveridge on idleness’ Social Policy and Administration 56, 2: 245-57
- Whiteside, N. (2022) ‘Beyond unemployment: the collapsing categories of the liberal labour market’ in C. Bessy and C. Didry (dirs.) L’économie est une science réflexive (Septentrion, Villeneuve d’Ascq): 99-111
- Whiteside, N. (2021) ‘Before the gig economy: UK employment policy and the casual labour question’ Industrial Law Journal 50, 4: 610–635 https://doi.org/10.1093/indlaw/dwab029 https://academic.oup.com/ilj/article-abstract/50/4/610/6425068
- Whiteside, N. (2019)‘Casual employment and its consequences: an historical appraisal of recent labour market trends’ Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, 40, 2: 1-26.
- Whiteside, N. (2019) ‘State policy and employment regulation in Britain: an historical perspective’ International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations, 35, 3: 379-
- Whiteside, N., Feng, J., Gerrans, P., Moulang, P. and Styrdom, M. (2019) ‘Why women have lower retirement savings: the Australian case’ Feminist Economics, 25, 1: 145-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2018.1533250
- Whiteside, N. (2017) ‘Flexible employment and casual labour: historical perspectives on labour market policy’ History and Policy, June http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/flexible-employment-and-casual-labour-a-historical-perspective-on-labour-ma
- Whiteside, N. (2017) ‘Transforming the unemployed: trade union benefits and the advent of state policy’ in K. Laybourn and J. Shepherd (eds.), Labour and Working Class Lives: essays to celebrate the life and work of Chris Wrigley (Manchester University Press, Manchester): 68-86.
- Whiteside, N. (2017) ‘Britain’s pension reforms: a new departure?’ in M. Jepson and D. Natali (eds) The New Pension Mix in Europe: Reforms throughout the Crisis’ (Peter Laing, Brussels)
- Whiteside, N. (2015) ‘Organising labour markets: the British experience’ in Wadauer, T. Buchner, and A. Mejstrik (eds.) The History of Labour Intermediation (Berghahn Books): 74-91
- Whiteside, N. (2015) ‘Who were the ‘unemployed’? Conventions, classifications and social security law in Britain, 1911-34’, Historical Social Research / Historische SozialforschungLink opens in a new window40, 1, 150-170.
- Whiteside, N. (2014) The Beveridge Report and Its Implementation: a Revolutionary Project?, Histoire@Politique. Politique, culture, société, n° 24, septembre-décembre 2014 [en ligne, histoire-politique.fr]
- Whiteside, N. (2014) Constructing unemployment: Britain and France in historical perspective’, Social Policy and Administration, 48, 1, 67-85.
- Whiteside, N. (2014) ‘Privatisation and After: time, complexity and governance in the world of funded pensions’, Transfer 20, 1, 67-79
All publications
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